Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

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Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

Image 3 of 4

Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

Crosby baseball players and coaches help out in Wimberley, Texas following the devestating floods that struck the area Memorial Day weekend.

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Helping Hands: Crosby baseball players help in Wimberley

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Living along the banks of the Blanco River, residents of Wimberley, Texas had seen time and time before the river rise and then go back down.

On May 24, 2015, the Blanco River, paired with a downpour, reared its ugly head and didn’t go back down like many longtime residents expected.

The Blanco River surged to 44 feet, the highest it had been since rising to 32 feet in 1926, and it went up that quickly at a rate of 223 cubic feet per second. The fastest pace on record for the area.

As residents rushed to get out of their houses, according to news reports they said they could hear trees snapping and houses being washed away outside. When daylight came, the water was still there, the destruction was real.

Weeks later, groups continue to make the trip to Wimberley to help in the on-going cleanup efforts.

Less than two weeks after the disaster in the Texas Hill Country, more than three hours and 200 miles away, Crosby head baseball coach Chris Wiggins was sitting at his desk checking his email as he usually does between classes.

What popped up in his inbox on this particular day was a message from Barbers Hill head baseball coach David Denny. In that email, Denny was seeing if anyone in the district wanted to head to Wimberley to help out in the cleanup effort.

It took Wiggins less than a minute to respond.

“It’s one of those things that you feel is right,” Wiggins said. “My reply went back in a minute that we were interested in going. It was a quick decision that it was something we wanted to be a part of.”

After he responded, Wiggins got on his phone and started sending messages to his players. Instantly his guys started responding saying yes they would go or apologized for not being able to go because of preset plans.

The crew of Cougars left Crosby at 3:45 a.m., arrived at Barbers Hill around 4:10 a.m., then piled onto a bus with Barbers Hill coaches and players heading towards Wimberley.

“It was eye-opening,” Wiggins said. “We all rode down together, drove over to Barbers Hill and we met them. So it was not only unique for us but unique for them as well. We’ve never been on the same bus before as teams. So that was unique, it was a good experience.”

Just a little more than three hours later, the bus carrying roughly 20 coaches and players from the Houston area arrived. Crosby and Barbers Hill had traveled the farthest to the work day.

When they pulled up to the area they would be helping at, the sight was eye-opening. They weren’t alone.

“When we drove up we found 10 or 11 other buses there with us,” Wiggins said. “When we got off the bus they were serving breakfast and talking to everybody. There was about 250 student-athletes sitting there with the coaches.”

There were male and female athletes there ready to help, Wiggins said, and every sport was represented from baseball and football to track, soccer, softball and everything in between.

Seeing more than 250 student-athletes there to help was an aw moment for his guys, Wiggins said, and shows if someone needs help in Texas there are a lot of programs that will lend a helping hand.

“We love being a part of stuff like that,” he said. “We’re trying to teach these kids to see the big picture. It really allowed us to when we became a part of that deal.”

Once the work got started, Wiggins and crew helped wherever they could in Wimberley with the cleanup efforts.

By the time the young men and coaches got back on the bus to head back to Houston, Wiggins said they were told what all the student-athletes and coaches had accomplished in a few hours would have taken four days without their help.

Having this experience with his players was more rewarding than any win, Wiggins said, because they are trying to teach them to be good students, good athletes just good men.

“For a coach it was rewarding, because I got to see my kids have the forethought that they could help somebody else besides themselves,” he said. “For teenagers that’s a big deal. It was eye-opening that we had some kids that would volunteer their time. It wasn’t mandatory.”